Sambal

Coffee demand is down. So are world coffee prices. For some farmers, the price that buyers are willing to pay for their product does not cover the cost of producing the crop.

This is not surprising: coffee demand varies rapidly, and coffee production varies slowly. Land needs to be cleared to be put into cultivation and maintained once cleared. Farmers who grow cash crops are in business, and sometimes a business has a bad year. Or two. Or four in a row.

(But I don’t see restaurant owners crying out for price subsidies and handouts. I don’t see benefit concerts organized for local hardware store owners.)

Oxfam’s proposed solution is to destroy some 5 million bags of coffee, thus raising the market price. They’re asking the major retailers (Kraft, Nestle, Sara Lee etc.) to do this. The major retailers, sensibly enough, claim that this will only address this year’s surplus and will actually encourage more overproduction.

I just loved this Reuters opening paragraph in an article about the coffee industry:

ADDIS ABABA, Sept 30 (Reuters) - More than 30 percent of eastern Ethiopia’s coffee crop could disappear within 10 years if regional farmers keep up a current trend to dump coffee in favour of a plant with a mild stimulant effect

In the Reuters world, coffee’s not a stimulant, and Yassir Arafat is not a terrorist.

I am shocked, shocked to find that Starbuck’s coffee is for sale in the gift shop of the new L.A. Cathedral. Cappuccinos must be popular. But do they sell Popesicles?

Caffeine can be used to control slugs — apparently even very dilute solutions of it are fatal to mollusks. Very large amounts of caffeine are fatal to people, as documented in the case of James Bird, an apparent suicide.

And Cadbury/Schweppes, makers of 7-Up, are introducing a new drink. Dubbed “dnL” (wonder how much that cost them), it’s sort of an anti-7Up, as it contains caffeine and is not clear. Bizarre.

Oh, and for both of my American readers — be aware that Canadian Mountain Dew is caffeine-free, so there’s absolutely no mitigating reason to drink it, up here. Go to a coffee shop instead.

A long, rambling, speculative article on the history of cafes in England. Couldn’t be bothered to read the whole thing as I haven’t had any coffee yet today:
Crisis at the Coffee Counter.

Apparently the end of the coffee fad in the UK is “sinister”. Huh? Is it being orchestrated by evil copyright holders (today’s villain of last resort)?

Honduran coffee workers demand the Honduran government grant 20 million dollars in loans. Violence ensues ( Coffee Workers Clash With Police ) after a week of protest.

Nothing clever to say about this.

Another bad idea: a luxury tax on that which fuels the wheels of industry around here.

Proposal brewing for Seattle “espresso tax”

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A campaign is underway to slap a tax on espresso in the city that launched America’s love affair with dark, strong coffee.

But so far few caffeine addicts living in the hometown of the Starbucks Corp. and Tully’s Coffee Corp. are complaining.

That’s because polls say that more than two-thirds of them favor a tax that would add 10 cents to the price of each cup of espresso or espresso-based coffee to help provide better child day care for low-income families.

Guarana-based drink (high caffeine content, low tannin content) for gamers:

Drink gives gamers jolt of energy

Most energy drinks target club kids or gym rats looking for that extra burst of power so they can dance all night or pump more iron.

But BAWLS focuses on a unique market niche: computer gamers.

The high-caffeine beverage doesn’t have the vitamins and minerals typically found in energy drinks and instead markets itself as a soft drink spiked with guarana, a berry grown in the Amazon rain forest. The formula has developed an almost cult-like following among computer addicts looking for a source of energy to keep them awake for gaming binges lasting 15 to 24 hours straight.